HIV/AIDS research in China: arising up from skyline

摘要

One of the major advances and few real breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS research is the discovery of anti-retroviral drugs and highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART). HAART, achieved by the collective efforts of many scientists and industrials, has significantly improved life expectancy and quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS. It has also been proven that effective treatment for viral infection is possible. HIV-1 infection chronically depletes CD4~+ T lymphocytes and compromises normal function of the immune system of infected persons. May et al have found that impaired immune function could be restored with continuous HAART. The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is characterized by a great diversity of HIV clades prevalent in various parts of the world. The host immune responses to the diversified HIV strains as well as the metabolic patterns to the drugs are also various. Therefore, simply taking the data collected from the other countries' HAART is not recommended. It is important that indigenous scientists and clinicians in their respective countries start their own HAART program to conduct research on their patients to obtain local treatment data. Such kinds of research efforts by several Chinese research groups have been published in this issue of Chinese Medical Journal.